Of Machine Malfunction and Life
by Dear Norma Jean
Summary: It's hard enough trying to have a relationship with your first officer without having to deal with a mysterious immortal, not to mention handsome, man from both the past and the future hitching a ride on your ship. minor crossover with Torchwood.
1. Prologue

**A/N - so, this is my first fic in this fandom (i usually just write bandslash lol) and concrit is ALWAYS appreciated especially when it concerns the nuances of Star Trek, as i am not a detail person in the slightest.**

**this IS a crossover with a British Sci-Fi series called Torchwood (a spin off of Doctor Who) and the first half of this chapter may be a bit confusing if you haven't seen it but the prologue will most likely be the only chapter that mentions TW canon in any detail. If you do want to know more about the show, Wikipedia has a page on it (though you really only need to be familiar with season three).**

**to address the question before it's asked: the reason i'm not posting this in the crossover section is because i feel that there's not enough Torchwood to justify calling it a true crossover, as Jack will most likely be the only Torchwood character included after this chapter.**

**_DISCLAIMER: i do not own Star Trek OR Torchwood OR associated concepts, this is just for fun. please don't sue me._**

**lastly, but also most importantly, this was beta'd by the fabulous T'Key'La, without whom this wouldn't be possible.**

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**Prologue**

Six months.

He thought it'd be enough, thought he could forgive himself if he moved away and kept moving, if he gave it time. That's what they'd all said, that he just needed time. And he believed them because that _was_ all he ever had needed and because that's what he'd needed to be true. But this time, every second he spent trapped on the tiny blue planet made him feel more and more claustrophobic, reminded him more and more of the things he'd done. He'd already seen this world, seen it a thousand times over and the familiarity of it all made the pain worse, like he was trapped. The whole planet was one big scrapbook of everything and everyone he'd done wrong in this life. Jack didn't need time; he needed an escape, a fresh start with a new life and a different name.

Gwen didn't seem to understand this, didn't seem to want to. All she knew was that he'd already left once and they had almost collapsed without him there. She was the only one left now and she didn't think she could do it all alone, not from scratch, not without Jack, not again. She knew he'd made up his mind, knew that he couldn't be persuaded otherwise. That's why she'd given him back the vortex manipulator; because, despite her pleas, she knew he'd leave one way or another, and this was the only way she'd get a proper goodbye.

She knew his mind was set and it broke her heart.

"They died, and I am sorry Jack, but you cannot just run away," she sobbed, her accent making itself more obvious. When had she started crying?

"You cannot run away…" The plea was faint and she knew it would do nothing but make this harder for him. But she'd always been selfish when it came to Jack.

"Oh yes I can." he said, something akin to bitterness floating on the edge of his voice.

" Just watch me." And with that, for the second time since they'd met, he put himself before her and he ran away. There were tears in his eyes, too, though for different reasons than hers.

She knew he would but it still hurt when he disappeared, evaporated into little tear-fogged halogen lights that sucked him into the cruiser hovering up in the stars.

It felt wrong, part of Jack observed, as the beaming process initiated. It didn't feel like standard planet-to-craft transport. It felt wrong somehow… but he couldn't place just how. He was breaking into pieces, being ripped up into atoms and carried into the sky, a body to match a mind.

He couldn't place the wrongness but it's hard to think when you're being split apart.

And then, for the first time in five months, three weeks, four days and seventeen hours, Jack stopped thinking.

"Captain. We're picking up abnormal interference on… just about everything," she informed Kirk, hands over a thousand different buttons, testing which ones were malfunctioning.

The Captain knew that interference was a normal part of traveling in space – like static channels on the radio – and it made him wonder how significant the disruption must be in order for it to be considered "abnormal". "

What kind of interference?"

Uhura flipped a switch, allowing the problem to broadcast through the speakers in the bridge. A strange sound filled the bridge.

At first it seemed like just static, but he listened closer and underneath the static there was a hollow thrumming sound that he'd never heard before.

"Sir, scanners show something approaching. Fast." The image immediately was transferred to the main screen.

"Where is it coming from and how long until it hits?" He carefully kept the panic out of his voice.

"Captain, we're traveling at warp speed," Spock informed him. "We cannot be struck by external forces while in warp; physics-"

"Yeah and trans-warp beaming is impossible, too," he shot back. "What direction and how long?"

"Estimated time of arriwal, er… impact, vorty-two seconds!" Chekov responded.

"Where is it coming from?"

The entire crew was panicking - there was no training for this and no one knew what to expect upon impact. Spock was right, the situation was impossible. Everyone worked furiously at their stations, trying to make predictions about what to expect. But it's hard to predict what's to come when you're in a situation that is impossible in more than five ways.

"Everywhere, sir, it's… it's… I don't know how to describe it; it's coming at us from all sides!"

Jim didn't know who was saying what but he was distinctly aware of the ticking clock.

"Thirty seconds!" someone said, the badly-hidden panic in their words not easing the pressure under which the crew was working.

"Show me external view of the ship, all sides! I wanna see this thing!" Half a moment later the requested image flashed before all of them and the bridge fell silent.

"That's not possible! All the scanners show…" For the first time in a very long time, Jim was very scared; because when the image appeared on the screen, nothing was there.

"Is it possible that the scanners are malfunctioning?" he whispered.

"It is…" Spock's voice was faint, as if he, too, was absolutely dumbfounded by the situation. "It is highly improbable that every piece of equipment would show the same error at once. The machines operate, respectively, on six different servers specifically to prevent a total system malfunction." He finished, managing to gain back some of his famous composure part-way through.

"Ten seconds." The whisper was so faint; it took the Captain a few moments to realize it was himself that had spoken.

Nine.

Still nothing outside.

Eight.

"Double check the scanners."

Six.

Five.

Four.

"Everything is operating properly."

Three.

Two.

One.

Right on time, a cacophony erupted behind the backs of the bridge crew and the scanners returned to normal, all trace of interference gone.

Jim bolted out of his chair.

About five feet behind where he'd been sitting, the floor was completely obliterated. A crater half a foot deep and seven feet wide had appeared, exposing wiring and sending shrapnel flying up from the destroyed metal floor. Sparks flashed minutely around the destroyed area.

"Lieutenant Uhura, alert medical; we have an emergency."

In the center of that crater lay a handsome man in a blue greatcoat.


	2. The Magic Man

**A/N - ****so, this is to get the required amount of backstory out of the way (it's also the last chapter for a while with a huge chunk of angst in it), the actual plot will begin next chapter. even with the amount of backstory given, Wikipedia would still be helpful if you're confused (the doctor who universe is quite hard to grasp if you haven't watched the show), the episodes referenced in this chapter are Doctor Who, season one of the new series, "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of The Ways".**

**Jack's timeline in relation to Star Trek timeline is approximated because, yeah, it's hard to mix the two and still remain mutually canon-friendly.**

**concrit is ALWAYS appreciated especially when it concerns the nuances of Star Trek, as i am not a detail person in the slightest.**

**_DISCLAIMER: i do not own Star Trek OR Torchwood OR associated concepts, this is just for fun. please don't sue me._**

**this chapter was not betad and any and all mistakes are my own (on a related note, if you find any, please let me so that i can fix them)**

**lastly, thanks to _Wi1dfire2 _for reviewing. the timeframe was chosen specifically to get rid of the Jack/Ianto dynamic. i ship Janto in TW, normally, but i wanted to see what Jack would do with the crew if he were single (even if i did cry quite a bit at the events that MADE him single) and i'm kinda fed up with us getting stuck with the series time-skipping every time jack leaves, i wanna see where he goes that's NOT to the Doctor. Also, i wanted to sort of test the waters for this kind of crossover, i've got an idea or two for a more legit one with more Torchwood that i may try after this.**

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**Chapter One: the magic man**

"He's dead, Jim," McCoy sighed, standing up from his squatted position.

"Probably since he got here. Now, would you care to let me in on how the _hell_ he got here?" Before anyone could tell him what they knew – or, rather, what they didn't – the room's attention was draw back to the body.

The man on the floor jerked up violently, ramrod-straight as if waking from a nightmare, and sucked several large, gasping breaths in before attaching to the nearest thing to him as if his entire existence depended on it. The nearest thing, however, happened to be Leonard McCoy.

"What the hell!" the doctor tried to shake the corpse's too-tight grasp on him, to no avail as the grip only tightened, blunt nails digging into soft flesh through the fabric of McCoy's pants with force that a dead man shouldn't posses; scared blue eyes, searching for familiarity, connected with his own.

The blue-eyed man was still breathing heavily—though with far less audibility—by the time his gaze broke from the one of the man above him. He let his hands fall, with minimal awkwardness, from the doctor's slacks and raised his eyes to a room whose faces were full of confused, borderline afraid, caution.

Slightly less than second to that observation was the fact that no less than fifteen phasers were aimed in his direction. Well, he thought, at least it was a group of _attractive_ gun-wielding possible-enemies whose ship he'd partially destroyed.

"Bones, step back!" one of them—he assumed it was the leader—yelled.

The same man then turned his gaze—and what a gaze it was—to him, "State your name, species and means of and purpose for entry."

Jack responded without thought, "Cap'm Jack Harkness-" he faltered after that; two-hundred-plus years in change was a hell of a habit to break and the name had slipped out before he'd had time to so much as think about it. Then again, he didn't intend to be on the ship very long at all; chances are he'd be gone in a matter of days, a few weeks maximum, depending on the technology. He'd make himself a new name when he got wherever it was he was heading.

He could be Jack for just a bit longer.

"-human. And I do believe I was cleared to come aboard. Though, come to think of it…" this was definitely not a cold-fusion cruiser and those were definitely humans, which, last time he checked, had not founded Starfleet by 2010.

"I _may_ be aboard the wrong ship."

"Three months?" Jack stared at the Vulcan.

Spock nodded, "The predicted minimum amount of time in which we will reach a planet that regulations will allow us to-."

"Minimum?" what the hell kind of ship was this?

"Affirmative, Mister Harkness."

"Captain." Jim corrected.

Spock raised an eyebrow minutely, "As you are neither willing to tell us what you happen to be a captain _of_ nor are you able to provide proof that you legitimately acquired the title, I am not under any obligation to refer to you as 'Captain.'"

Jack sighed and decided to let the issue go in favor of more pressing matters, "Okay, you said minimum, what's the most likely date of me getting anywhere?"

"If I am to assume you are neither speaking generally nor referring to points in space, I can only deduce that you are attempting to ask when we will next arrive at a federation planet or space-dock?" Spock knew very well to what the "Captain" was referring but he found anger in humans, especially this one, a particularly fascinating thing.

"Yes, damn it!" the Captain looked about ready to spit.

"In that situation, our most likely time frame would be approximately ten-point-two-five-seven months ship's time. Though that is assuming that no disrepair which facilitates an emergency rescue or tow occurs as well as assuming that-" Spock was interrupted yet again, "Why is it going to take that long?"

"The mission of the Enterprise is to seek _new_ worlds, Mister Harkness. We chart the planets in an unexplored sector of the galaxy. As it is unexplored, we have to go in the opposite direction of the previously explored, thus, the opposite direction of a planet with the qualifications you seek." If he were prone to conveying emotion vocally, Spock's tone would've been a superior one.

"So I'm stuck here for ten months." The statement held the tonal quality of a person who'd just realized that there were, literally, no other options.

"Affirmative."

Jim was close to voluntarily going to Bones and having himself hypoed with at least five very strong sedatives for the duration of their _guest_'s stay. The man was utterly infuriating in every possible way. Between his incessant, half-serious flirting with anything alive _and_ his slightly out-there sense of humor _and_ his dazzling smile _and_ his enigmatic blue eyes _and_ his tendency to be just a bit overdramatic he was... exactly like Jim in every possible way.

And Jim didn't think there was anything wrong with their shared personality traits or unique brand of charm, per se, but the man was _obviously_ more practiced at the whole thing than himself and it was _distracting the crew, damn it._

McCoy of course thought the whole situation was a particularly expensive brand of hilarious, a deliciously cruel twist of fate and karma that had been chosen as punishment for all the crap Jim had ever put the doctor through, displayed in front of him for his viewing pleasure. Jim had been able to rant for all of three sentences before his friend drew the parallels and sank into bouts of uncontrolled laughter that had resumed its reign every time he'd tried to broach the subject since.

As for Jack, after he'd woken up and determined that, hey, maybe they _hadn't_ let him on the ship after all and after he'd gotten over being stuck aboard the _Enterprise_ for far longer than expected, Jim had McCoy scan him with the tricorder only to find that—apart from something quite vaguely resembling a uterus ("ignore it, hasn't worked since 1974 when the concentration of estrogen in the water…"), mildly off-the-chart pheromone production ("no where near dangerous, Jim, just enough to make him smell a bit better than the rest of us."), and a slightly above-average metabolism—he was a perfectly healthy male human, approximately thirty-five to forty-three years of age with blue eyes and brown hair and a really tacky affection for World War II military dress and too-detailed, far fetched personal stories that held the air like a stand-up routine rather than someone's actual experiences. That is to say, apart from a few quirks, Jack Harkness was within the range of a medically normal Homo Sapien.

Except for one major difference, "His rate of cell decay is practically non-existent." Jim had seen McCoy angry, he's seen him drunk and sad and happy and amused and pissed off and sleepy and hungover and even (once) downright _giddy_ but he had never got to see the blend of immense curiosity and absolute disbelief that colored his face when he'd figured this out. Sometimes Jim forgot that Bones was actually a scientist and not just a drinking buddy that slapped the high-tech equivalent of an Ace bandage on him when he did something stupid and both overly dramatic and overly heroic.

"If an average person's rate of cell decay was, say, one, his would be about one times ten to the negative forty-second. Do you know how many zeros that is?"

"I imagine somewhere around forty-two" he quipped, mostly just to fulfill one of his most base needs: to be a smartass.

McCoy shot him a glare, transferring documents and test results and diagrams and things Jim couldn't begin to recognize to the holo-screen in his office.

"This guy… he's weird, Jim. It's like someone took his body and slowed down the clock until it was almost stopped and then just walked away."

Jim sighed, "Can you tell me how he managed to rise from the dead on my Bridge three days ago or just state the obvious with clever metaphors?"

McCoy faltered, "The only thing I can guess is that-"

A voice cut the doctor off, "-the source of the slow rate of cell decay is also the source of an equal and opposite rate of cell restoration after damage despite the level of cell degradation?" In the doorway stood none other than Jack Harkness himself.

"That's about it and didn't your mother ever teach you any damn manners?" Bones glared at the uninvited guest.

The man scuffed, "There's no way to prove it; I heard almost the exact same thing about two years ago. Ended up being a complete waste of time, I can tell you how it _happened_ but only one man even has a chance of figuring out how it works. And yes, she did, but it's very easy to forget with as long as I've been around. Though, Doctor McCoy, if you want teach me you're _more_ than welcome-"

"In your sorry wet dreams, Harkness." Bones cut him off, "Though I'd be inclined not to use you as a dummy to test the effects of unknown alien substances if you tell me how the hell it happened."

Jack chuckled lightly, what was the harm in telling? He'd never see these people after he left and they'd be hard pressed to try and track him down.

"Worth a try…"

He took a deep breath, "about a hundred years ago – your time because my linear timeline is a bit of a clusterfuck, pardon my French – I was on a space station known as Satellite Five-" he saw recognition flash across their faces, historical knowledge of a particularly dark time for the human race, "-and, long story short, I died, tragically young and heroically brave."

Jim rolled his eyes.

"But a woman, a girl really, brought me back. She absorbed time itself and she gave a little piece of it to me; but she didn't just bring me back, she kept me, brought me back for good. I die, and then I wake up. Forever." The entire speech was brisk, with a militaristic lack of emotion.

"So you're immortal?" Jim ventured quietly after a spell. A year ago he would've called bullshit on the tale but, he figures, once Romulans come through wormholes and kill your dad, anything is possible.

Jack laughed without thinking, a habit, a sound without feeling, "No, I'm just…" he laughed again, this time with slightly less bite and a little more sadness, "a bungee-jumper among cliff-divers. They all hit the water but I get pulled back up to watch them drown."

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**A/N: i understand that ten months is a bit unbelievable, but let's pretend not for plot purposes, mkay?**


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